Grant Gerlock
ReporterGrant Gerlock started covering Des Moines and central Iowa for IPR in March 2019. Before that he covered food, agriculture and rural life for Harvest Public Media at NET in Lincoln, Nebraska, where his work was recognized with a Regional Murrow Award and awards from the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association.
Grant has a master’s degree in mass communication from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and graduated from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. He grew up on a farm outside of Cumberland in southwest Iowa where he listened to public radio in the tractor. You can contact Grant at ggerlock@iowapublicradio.org.
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The Des Moines School Board has agreed to move the district toward a hybrid learning plan that would comply with state requirements, but only once COVID-19 spread in Polk County declines further. -
If Des Moines Public Schools continues to provide primarily online learning, students who were already falling behind will fall through the cracks. That was the warning Monday from parents, students and community groups urging the school board to move the district into a hybrid plan with a virtual option.
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Des Moines Public Schools will stay in virtual learning, for now, even after a Polk County judge ruled that without a state waiver the district is violating guidelines for in-person learning during the pandemic.
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Des Moines Public Schools has lost a request to temporarily block state Return-to-Learn rules while a lawsuit aimed at overturning them works through the courts. The ruling means the district may have to bring students back in-person at least half of the time or risk making up for virtual days at the end of the year.
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Data Scientist Sara Willette is now working with the Iowa State Education Association to track COVID-19 outbreaks at Iowa schools.
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The Ames school board has voted to start the year in all-virtual learning in response to a spike in coronavirus cases in Story County where the two-week infection rate is over 21 percent.
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Students are back in school all across Iowa, and reports are coming in of districts already responding to positive cases of the coronavirus.
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A request from Des Moines Public Schools to begin the year virtually has been denied by the Iowa Department of Education. In a statement, the agency says families can choose to attend remotely, but the district cannot choose that option for all students. Des Moines Public Schools says it will move ahead with the plan anyway, and ask a judge to reverse the decision.
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School districts across the state are making their final decisions about how to start the year. Some are choosing to go against state guidelines, which Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says would be against the law. A handful of districts have said they plan to ignore that and do it anyway.
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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says schools that switch to all-virtual learning without permission from the state will have to make up time at the end of the year.
